Mai's room was at the pinnacle of his palace, the highest point of Nebia. It was bright and open and white and gave a sense of invulnerability. Rina stretched her arms, grinning. She cupped the swell of her stomach and sent a trickle of power to the child. It moved in answer, and she thought her heart would split open at the fullness.

The mattress was empty beside her. The memory of Mai's brief rest evident in the ripples of the sheet. In the weeks since their wedding, she'd grown used to his sleepless nights.

With a pang of fear, she remembered Martha telling her how as a person aged, their need for sleep diminished. Mai had lived for almost six-hundred turns. No, he wouldn't need much sleep, but the shadows that grew beneath his eyes and the paleness of his skin concerned her.

She propped on her elbows and peered across the room to the balcony, smiling when she saw him. He leaned against the railings, dressed only in loose cotton trousers, his form appearing and disappearing through the billowing curtains.

Good morning, my love, he said in her mind, the words tickling up the line and straight to the crystal beneath her skin. He turned, and she caught the flash of a crooked smile and the fan of crows feet shooting from those blue, blue eyes.

Hungry? he asked.

She grinned and nodded, breath catching as he came to her. When his knees reached the mattress, he crept across it, until his nose hovered above hers. He lowered his lips and kissed her, slow and deep, the memory of spiced coffee filling her mouth.

She licked her lips. "So hungry," she said aloud.

"Let me fix that for you," he replied in turn.

She reached for him too late as he left to summon the servants and she groaned, understanding he wouldn't be joining her for breakfast.

A rumble of laughter filled her mind. Forgive me. I need to attend to some matters. Eat, dress, relax, and someone will bring you to me.

☆☽○☾☆

A guard came for her late in the afternoon. He greeted her with a stiff bow, which revealed the beginning of a balding pate amongst cropped salt-and-pepper hair. "Your Majesty," he said in a tone as rigid as his bow.

She gave him a frosty smile and inclined her head a hair's breadth. No more. He'd get no more from her.

Again, she descended into the mountain. Her escort held a spear in one hand, scabbard slapping against his thigh, the creak of his leather armour, and the echo of his boots on stone. Down, down, down they went via snaking secret tunnels. Mage lights winked on as they approached and off as they passed, the damp, dark limestone glistening, the crystal flecks in the rock winking green.

In places, the ceiling grazed her head. Sweat ran down her back. The air was hot and humid, as if since her last descent, the mountain had inhaled the city's heat and held it jealously.

The passage widened, and the unnamed guard stopped and stood to the side. "Your Majesty."

Rina winced as she passed the man, too aware of the way he fought against the urge to squirm and pull away. This man did not like her people. Then she smiled, her incisors digging into her lower lips as she remembered the power she held over him. Now, she was the one who could hurt him. Not the other way.

She knew she approached her destination as the temperature dropped, and the mountain yawned wide. Last time, she had been too overwhelmed to notice the carved engravings around the cathedral entrance. Though she couldn't read them, they seemed as familiar as the back of her hand.

Come, Mai said in her mind, sensing her arrival, and she felt a corresponding tug at her chest.

Alone, she entered the dark cathedral, the abyss of the cave consuming her steps with echoing gulps. The moment her foot touched the first circle of symbols carved into the floor, the cavern blazed to life, thousands upon thousands of crystal teeth glowing from within.

She ignored the shiver that ripped down her back like a cat's claw. Crystals loomed over her like giant sentinels. Others peeked from pillars of rock like curious observers. Stray crystals scuttled away like field mice as her slippered feet kicked them aside. She rounded the dais with the golden altar and carried on, wending her way through a crystal forest. The glow that pulsed within the crystals dimmed as she moved from the centre of the room until the only light came from the mage lamps.

On she walked. Deeper and deeper, trying to ignore the prickle at her neck, telling herself it was nothing more than her instincts rebelling against where she ventured, far too deep below the earth. Were it not for that pull in her chest she would have been lost.

After a time, she detected the sound of falling water, growing louder and louder, until it became a roar.

A shadow of light stretched before her, and mist kissed her face as she emerged into yet another cave, tiled in a mosaic of blue, red, and white until it met a thick wall of roaring water. The mountain wall had been smoothed and whitewashed, then painted in vivid colours to create a scene that made her heartache—a sandstone city, flanked by high cliffs and an azure bay, crowned by a towering citadel. A lush, green oasis of date palms and fields surrounded it, following a wending river, and then desert stretched as far as the eye could see, disappearing into the cave roof.

"Hypat," said a voice behind her.

Home, her mind echoed. She turned, surprised at how easily Mai had crept up behind her. He wore his leather breeches and knee-high black boots, his white shirt unlaced, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows—streaks of grease intermingled with the dark hairs on his forearms.

"Before the Day of Devastation, " he continued, stretching out a finger and walking to the painting. He placed it on a dark smudge representing a window high in the citadel. "That," he said simply, "was my room." He gave her a quick, rueful smile. "And that." He moved his finger to a higher window. "That is where your ancestor was conceived."

"What was his name?"

Mai lifted his brows. "My dear, haven't you realised that, despite what the Denese mages and royal family wanted people to believe, the most powerful strains of the Carnelian Way were usually in women?"

"But you're a—"

He took her chin between his hands and caressed it. "An exception."

"Fin said..."

"Ah—yes, my rogue ship captain. The people of the Cerulean Seas have it right with their line of succession, alas for him, and his hopes of becoming a lordling. Afterall, it's the women who bring life to this world." He looked to her stomach. With the spark infused with the Carnelian Way and the near-constant trickle of power Mai sent down the line, it grew far faster than a normal pregnancy.

He stepped to her, hands coming to her stomach, pressing down against the tight flesh, only a whisper of silk separating his skin from hers.

He leaned in close, lips caressing the lobe of her ear. "I digress. Ia. Her name was Ia."

Ia, she whispered the name in her mind like a caress. The child who should have ended Mai's line but brought them together more than half a millennia later.

"What was she like?" she asked.

"Powerful. Angry." Mai shrugged and took her hand, pulling her deeper into the cave, where fingers of light clawed through the curtain of water. Refracted patterns from the ever-moving waterfall danced across the floor tiles. "And I too bitter to try to make her my friend."

Rina looked toward a whirring sound. Mai followed her gaze. A giant paddlewheel spun in the far corner of the room, powered by the constant movement of the waterfall. Beyond, a series of smaller cogged wheels turned at a frantic pace, chainlinks slinking between them. The sound and movement were mesmerising. This wasn't what drew Rina, though. What mesmerised her was the enormous glass globe. Light blazed within, like a small sun. Like the Carnelian Way, but—no, not the Carnelian Way. At least she didn't think it was.

"What do you think, my love?"

She rubbed absently at the crystal beneath the skin of her sternum, walking toward the light. The faintest buzz, almost like the hum of cicadas, emanated from it. The hairs on her arms rose as she drew closer—not from a sense of unease as in the crystal cave, nor of deeper awareness. They just rose in response to the alienness of the machine.

The energy in the glass was an unwavering blaze, and she half expected to feel heat or for thirst to come upon her, but it didn't. She inhaled, but instead of a rush of power, only a slight trickle came to her—like she tried to consume a rock.

She turned to Mai, a wordless question across her face.

"Do you remember, in the tower, when I told you how the cable cart was powered?" he said.

She nodded and scrambled through her memory, searching for the word. "Tech...tech—" She fumbled for the name.

"Technology. A power that can be wielded by all who are willing to learn how to use it."

She walked the length of the device and approached the water wheel, dipping her hand into the water. The chain links had begun to rust. "How does it work?"

He talked her through the mechanisation, taking her hand as he pointed out the intricacies. Though much of it was beyond her comprehension, she understood that the essential element was the same that sent bolts of light across the sky during a storm—an electric charge.

"As you know, the Carnelian Way is waning in the Magisterium. The reinvigoration of the bloodlines is vital and will help heal the divide between our people." He indicated the bulb, his blue eyes earnest. "Concurrently, we need to find alternative ways to power this empire, so that the Carnelian Way can be used to rebuild Denea."

Denea. Her people's home. Mai's home. The child shifted in her stomach—it wanted to go, too. "Could it be done?" she asked. "Would the magisters be willing to put their gifts to such a—"

Mai's face darkened. "They can thank Denea for their power," he said abruptly.

"But—"

"No buts." He waved her comment away, releasing his grip on her. "The part of magisters that can wield the Carnelian Way has its roots in Old Denea. If they don't want it to wither and die in future generations, they can do their part to keep it alive."

Rina frowned, not able to see the incentive for them to do this. With their power enhanced, the last thing they would want to do was turn a desert into an oasis. Least of all, a city filled with the ash of their slaughtered descendants.

"I don't understand. If the bloodlines are strengthened, couldn't they..." She let the words trail off. Talking of the death of a monarch was treason. Yet she was a monarch too, at least in name.

She needn't have minded her words.

"Kill me?" He snorted. "They could try—and if they managed to, well." His eyes raked her. "They'd have Arkis and Elia's heir to contend with first." The smile left his face. "There are more nations out there, Rina. Far beyond those mapped in the public atlas you would have seen in the libraries. Nations with great armies and engineers—the mages of the technological world." He gave a pointed look at his machine. "They have spies in our cities, watching us. It's me they fear—my power, my long life that keeps them at bay. Were I to die tomorrow, they would come—perhaps not at first, but they would all the same. The Magisterium would hold back their hordes and siege weaponry for a time, but eventually, they would overwhelm Eurora and take control of the Carnelian Way."

Rina's crystal grew cold. This was what he had kept from her. The tale was a familiar one. Hadn't this been what Mai's uncle had wanted to do when his nephew was denied Denea's throne? Take it by force. Learn to use the power for his nation. She pushed the thought away. Mai didn't cause the Devastation—that was on Denea.

"Ironic," he said, and Rina shook herself from her thoughts. "That this time it was a Euran prince who married a Denese princess to protect Eurora."

"I'm not a princess—"

"No, an empress now. You have the bloodlines of princes—if the threads of time had been woven differently, it might have been you sitting in that tower solar looking over Hypat Bay, as my ancestors did. Do you see how it has come full circle?"

She swallowed, suddenly feeling very heavy. Did this mean it was all political, that he only married her because of her ancestors?

"Shh." He cupped her cheek, his hand rough and cold, and made her face him. Since when did an alliance rule out love? he asked, the question still ringing down the line between them as he pressed his lips to hers. He continued to speak as his mouth moved over hers. My mother and father were married for less, and their love echoes through the ages.

When he withdrew, his eyes were bright, and he kissed away a tear threatening to rush down her cheek. He led her to a small sheltered ledge close to the waterwheel. A gap in the curtain of water allowed them to peer out to a small cirque in the mountainside that looked inland, over the river. This side of the mountain was uninhabited. Walls and steep slopes protected against invasion or unwanted guests.

He pulled her back against his chest and held her. "Wait with me here a little longer," he said. "I have something to show you."

★☾●☽★

A/N: Thank you very much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please consider voting or leaving a comment.